The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Business Stupidity in the 21st Century

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THE TM

FUTURE Thriving on Stupidity in the 218t Century

SCOTT ADAMS

•

HarperBusiness

A Division of Harper Collins Publishers

Dedicated to my parents, Paul and Virginia Adams, so they won't be too mad that I made jokes about them

ON NT INTRODUCTION HOW TO PREDICT THE FUTURE

S

Adams's Rule of the Unexpected . . . . . . Adams's Rule of Self-Defeating Prophecies Adams's Rule of Logical Limits . . . . . . .

.5

2 AGING Retirement . . . . . . . . . . . . Genetically Engineered Children Children Are Our Future

3

.6

.6

9 .11 .11 .12

TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS

17

Life Will Not Be Like Star Trek Technology to Avoid Work The Future of the Internet . . . Clothing of the Future . . . . . The Network Computer versus the Personal Computer ISDN . . . . . . . . . . . . The Bozo Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . Censorship on the Internet . . . . . . Technology Makes Us Less Productive Energy Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . Technology as the Leading Cause of Death Men Who Use Computers-The New Sex Symbols

.17 .26 .29 .31 .33 .40 .46 .50 .53 .56 .58 .65

CONTENTS

viii

4

LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS

71

5

THE WORLD GETS MORE COMPLICATED

75

The Incompetence Line Your Busy Life ..... Household Services

.80 .89 .89

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM

93

6

7

The Future of Voting . . . . . . Vote Deflation . . . . . . . . . The Rise of the Hairy Reasoners

.96 .99 .101

THE FUTURE OF GENDER RELATIONS

105

Sex in the Future . . . . Women in Charge . . . . Technology to Free Men

8

THE FUTURE OF WORK The Future of Managers Employee Motivation . . The Revenge of the Downsized The Job Search in the Future Outsourcing . . . . . . . . . . The Job Model of the Future . The Future of Telecommuting The Future of Office Workstations Acronyms Shortages Industrial Espionage . . . . . . .

.105 .107 .115

119 .119 .123 .126 .129 .134 .136 .143 .149 .155 .158

ix

CONTENTS

9 MARKETING IN THE FUTURE

159

Spiderweb Marketing Strategy Markets of the Future

.166 .170

10 GOOD AND BAD JOBS OF THE FUTURE

113

Mothers, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Vendors. Procurement Temp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accounting, Auditing, and Dentistry Venture Capitalist . . . . . . Records Retention . . . . . Get Paid to Criticize Others

11 SOCIAL STUFF Poverty . . . The Age of Consent Crime . . . . . . . News in the Future Parent Licenses Euthanasia . Privacy . . . . . Pet Services .. Food in the Future

.178 .180 .181 .183 .186 .188 .189

191 .191 .192 .193 .199 .204 .206 .208 .211 .213

12 ENDANGERED SPECIES

211

13 SOME THINGS WON'T IMPROVE

221

Airlines Bicycle Seats

.221 .222

CONTENTS

x

14 A NEW VIEW OF THE FUTURE

225

The Double Slit Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Objects Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235 Gravity Exists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .236 Cause and Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240 Chaos Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244 Affirmations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .246

APPENDIX A: AFFIRMATIONS TECHNIQUE

255

APPENDIX B: DISCLAIMERS OF ORIGINALITY

257

IN ROD

10

There are two types of people in the world: the bright and attractive people like yourself who read Dilbert books, and the 6 billion idiots who get in our way. Since we're outnumbered, it's a good idea not to refer to them as idiots to their faces. A devious Dilbert reader suggested calling them "Induh-viduals" instead. The advantage to this word is that you can insult someone without risk of physical harm. Example: You:

You're quite an Induhvidual, Tim.

Tim:

Thank you.

If you're not already surrounded by Induhviduals, you will be soon. New ones are being born every minute, despite the complexity involved in breeding. Frankly, I think much of the procreation of Induhviduals happens purely by accident when two of them are trying to do something complicated-like jump-start a car-and they suddenly get confused. Whatever causes the breeding-and I truly don't want to know the details-it's safe to assume there will be more of it. The way I see it, you have three good strategies for thriving in a future full of Induhviduals: l. Wear loose clothing and pretend your car battery is dead.

2. Keep Induhviduals in your car so you can use the car-pool lane. 3. Harness the stupidity of Induhviduals for your own financial gain. Option one is dangerous. I recommend that you stay away from anything that involves Induhviduals, electricity, and sex. It's just common sense.

2

THE DILBERT FUTURE

Option two requires you to be in your car with Induhviduals for long periods of time. There is a real risk that they will attempt to make conversation. That would negate any benefits you get from avoiding traffic congestion. And if you aCcidentally leave them in the car and forget to crack the window open, they'll die. You'll need more than one of those little Christmas-tree air fresheners to solve that problem. I recommend option three: Harness the stupidity of Induhviduals for your own financial gain. In order to do that, you'll need to be able to anticipate their moves well in advance. This can be difficult, because the average Induhvidual does not anticipate his own moves in advance. If you asked the average Induhvidual about his plans, he'd say he has no plans. But if you yanked the eight-track tape player out of that Induhvidual's Pinto and then repeatedly hit that average Induhvidual with it, you could make him confess that he has some plans, even if those plans are not very exciting:

Average Induhvidual's Plans • Become shorter and more crotchety over time.

• Lose all appreciation of popular music. • Cultivate ear hair. • Get a new eight-track player. Clearly, with a world full of people who have goals like that, most of the things that happen in the future will not be the result of good planning. That makes the future difficult to predict. That's why you need this book. I have compiled my predictions here so you won't have any unpleasant surprises during the next millennium. Any morning you're wondering whether it would be better to drown yourself in your cereal bowl or face 6 billion Induhviduals again, at least you'll be making an informed decision.

3

introduction

This book is an exhaustive analysis of the future, in the sense that if you held the book above your head for several hours, you would become exhausted. I recommend you do just that before reading it so you'll be groggy and won't notice that the paragraphs don't all fit together-like this next one. I'm more of a sprinter than a marathoner when it comes to many aspects of life. For example, when I'm running. Over short distances-up to two yards-I can run faster than cheap panty hose on an itchy porcupine. But over long distances, I'm not so impressive. I try to compensate for my lack of long-distance endurance by having good form. I'm told that my running style is quite majestic. That's probably because I learned to run by watching nature films in which leopards chased frightened zebras. Now when I run, I open my eyes real wide and let my tongue slap the side of my face. If you saw it, you'd be saying, "That's very majestic." And then you'd run like a frightened zebra. That's why my homeowners association voted to ask me to do my jogging with a pillowcase over my head. If you think none of this is relevant to the future, you'd be oh -so-wrong, because it leads quite neatly to my first prediction:

PREDICTION 1 In the future, authors will take a long time to get to the point. That way the book looks thicker.

There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as "nutty methods." Or you can put wellresearched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time." While these approaches have their advantages, none are appropriate for this book, because they require more work than sitting in front of my computer and typing. Instead, I will use these far-more-efficient methods to divine the future:

THE DllBERT FUTURE

4

Methods for Divining the hture 1. My awesome powers oflogic.

2. My crystal-clear observations. 3. My almost frightening intuition. 4. My total lack of guilt. The future is an excellent topic for any author. By the time you realize I was wrong about everything I predicted, I will be dead. Business schools refer to that phenomenon as the "time value of money," or more colloquially as "GOOD LUCK GETTING A REFUND NOW!!" Books about the future also have a nice upside potential. For example, let's say most of civilization is destroyed by some huge calamity. (That's not the good part.) And let's say a copy of this book somehow gets encased in amber and trapped in a tar pit. (It happens more often than you'd think. It happened to my brother. He makes a great conversation piece.) Eons from now, when our descendants find it (the book, not my brother), they will read my predictions and believe I was a wise holy man. I think I'll like that, except for the part about being dead. As with my previous books, I will say a lot of obvious things that you already agree with, thereby making me look like a genius. But in a departure from the past, I will also say as many controversial and inflammatory things as I can (i.e., pretending to have actual opinions). If lots of gullible Induhviduals get mad at me, it might generate enough publicity to get me invited as a guest on Larry King Live. That's really the goal here. So if you see something that makes you mad, don't just sit there, organize a protest. I'll chip in for the poster boards and Magic Markers. Throughout this book, I will delve into many areas in which I am thoroughly incompetent, including politics, history, economics, phYSiology, and particle physics. My intellectual shortcomings will manifest themselves as inaccuracies, misconceptions, and logical flaws. I recommend that you read it quickly so you won't notice.

ONE

I

Some people try to predict the future by assuming current trends will continue. This is a bad method. For example, if you applied that forecasting method to a puppy, you'd predict that the puppy would continue growing larger and larger until one day-in a fit of uncontrolled happiness-its wagging tail would destroy a major metropolitan area. But that rarely happens, thanks to the National Guard. The future never follows trends, because of three rules I have named after myself in order to puff up my importance.

ADAMS'S RULE OF THE UNEXPECTED Something unexpected always happens to wreck any good trend. Here are some examples to prove my point:

GOOD TREND

UNEXPECTED BAD THING

Computers allow us to work 100 percent faster.

Computers generate 300 percent more work.

\Vomen get more political power.

Women are as dumb as men.

Popular music continues to get better.

I get old.

THE DllBERT FUTURE

6

ADAMS'S RULE Of SELF-DEfEATING PROPHECIES Whenever humans notice a bad trend, they try to change it. The prediction of doom causes people to do things differently and avoid the doom. Any doom that can be predicted won't happen. Here are some examples of dooms that people predicted and how the indomitable human spirit rose to the challenge and thwarted the prediction:

PREDICTION OF DOOM

HUMAN RESPONSE

Population will grow faster than food supply.

Scientists realize you can call just about anything a "meat patty."

Petroleum reserves will be depleted in twenty years.

Scientists discover oil in their own hair.

Communism will spread to the rest of the world.

All Communists become ballerinas and defect.

I might have some of the details wrong; 1'm working from memory here. But the point is that none of those predictions came true once we started worrying about them. That's the way it always works.

ADAMS'S RULE Of LOGICAL LIMITS All trends have logical limits. For example, computers continue to shrink in size, but that trend will stop as soon as you hear this report on CNN: This just in. A computer systems administrator sneezed, and his spray destroyed the entire military computing hardware of North America, leading to the conquest of the United States by Haitian bellhops. More on that later, but first our report on the healing powers of herbal tea.

7

How 10 Predict Ihe Future

At that point, we'll say, "Hey, maybe those computers were too small." That will be the end of the shrinking computer trend. If all trends end, what can we look at to predict the future? There are some things in life so consistent that they are like immutable laws of human nature. You can predict most of the future by looking at these immutable laws and applying logiC. Immutable Laws of Human Nature

• Stupidity • Selfishness • Hominess Those are the things that will never change, no matter what else does. People don't change their basic nature, they just accumulate more stuff upon which they can apply their stupidity, selfishness, and hominess. From this perspective, the future isn't hard to predict. I realize that by telling you my secrets I'm not only opening my kimono, but I'm also doing jumping jacks in front of your picture window, if you catch my visual gist. But I'm not worried about you learning my secrets, because I'll always be one step ahead of you.

PREDICTION 2

In the future, you will wish I had never put the image in your head of me doing jumping jacks in an open kimono.

TWO

I Human life expectancies increase every year. This is not necessarily a good thing.

PREDICTION 3 On average, Induhviduals who are alive today will experience 80 years of complaint-free living. Unfortunately, they' II live to 160.

The aging of Induhviduals will create some big challenges for businesses. Senior citizens are never in a hurry, and they're not willing to put up with any crap. The average retail transaction "vill take up to three days. It won't even be that quick unless stores start accepting as legal tender whatever elderly Induhviduals find in their pockets. Merchants "'rill be forced to accept hard candy, tissues, and bird seed as payment. But that's okay. The merchants will handle it the same way they handle Canadian pennies and Kennedy fifty-cent pieces-by giving them to timid customers as change. I make fun of senior citizens, but obviously I aspire to be one of them, the alternative being what it is. Unfortunately, not all older people will be pleasant, intelligent, and reasonable-the way I plan to be. Many will be Induhviduals who somehow managed to survive for years without ever eating anything from a container with a skull on it. This means trouble,

THE DILBER! FUTURE

10

because the only thing worse than being surrounded by Induhviduals is being surrounded by senior citizen Induhviduals. Young Induhviduals sometimes feel pressure to keep their thoughts to themselves, but that impulse goes away over time. Eventually, we'll have several billion senior citizen Induhviduals who will feel the need to complain loudly about things they don't understand, which, as you can guess, will include just about everything. The cumulative noise from all that whining will cause planet-wide deafness in small animals. However, there is a solution. It's called cryogenic freezing. The theory is that when someone has an incurable illness, you can freeze their bodies and then thaw them out in the future when scientists have invented a cure. This seems like a perfect solution, assuming we have enough storage space. Cryogenic freezing has several advantages: l. The Induhvidual pays for it himself.

2. Technically, it's not murder. 3. There's no gooey stuff to clean up. 4. You can convince their relatives to kiss them and watch the fun as their lips get frozen stuck. All you have to do is convince the Induhviduals around you that they have incurable illnesses and cryogenics is their only hope. You'd get the hypochondriacs first. They'd be the easiest. You could get a few million more Induhviduals to sign up for the plan by sending them a computer virus through the Internet. You'd be surprised how many Induhviduals think they can get viruses from their computers. For the rest of the Induhviduals, you'd need accomplices in the medical community. But I don't think it will be a problem because unlike retailers, doctors won't put up with being paid in hard candy, tissues, and bird seed.

11

Aging

RETIREMENT Most people are not saving enough money for retirement. If you're one of them, I suggest you start exercising vigorously so that later in life you can bully your frail peers and take their stuff when you need it. I often see senior citizens in the park practicing Tai Chi Chuan. The alleged purpose is to increase balance and energy or some such baloney. What ever happened to TAKING A WALK? You don't need to learn lethal skills to increase balance and energy. It's obvious to me that those senior citizens are preparing to slap the bejeezus out of the rest of us and take our stuff. They're just biding their time and waiting for us to realize there isn't enough retirement money for everyone. Many of you are saving money instead of exercising. It seems like a smart thing to do, but later you'll be cursing yourselves as you watch the Tai Chi experts carry your stuff away in huge boxes. PREDICTION 4 The people who are studying Tai Chi Chuan instead of saving money are planning to beat us up and take our stuff when we're retired.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

GENETICAUY ENGINEERED CHILDREN At some point-probably in your lifetime-we'll have the technology to make all children tall, lean, and muscular. They'll have smooth skin, perfect hair, good teeth, and 20/20 vision. All genetic abnormalities will be spotted and corrected in the womb. This is very good news for the people born in the future. It is very bad news for those of you reading this book. We'll look like a hideous Quasimodo society to the perfect generation that will follow us. We'll not only be old, we'll have a whole range of physical imperfections

THE DllBERT FUTURE

12

that will make us appear repulsive to the young. They'll look like the cast of Baywatch and we'll look like extras on The X-Files. PREDICTION 5 The people who are alive today will appear grotesque to the perfectly engineered children of the future.

This situation \Yill cause an even greater rift between the older and younger generations. But it will also ease our guilt about plundering the planet and leaving our garbage and debt to those ungrateful little Barbie and Ken dolls. So it's not entirely bad.

CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE

True Story The scene is a grocery store. A father studies a can of chili. His ten-year-old son stands nearby. His mother is at the far end of the aisle picking up another item. I am one of a dozen other shoppers in this aisle. The father says to his son, "Ask your

13

Aging

mother if Hormel chili is okay." The son turns and yells at the top of his lungs, "HEY MOM! IS HORMEL CHILI OKAY?!" The children are our future. And that is why, ultimately, we're screwed unless we do something about it. If you haven't noticed, the children who are our future are good-looking, but they aren't all that bright. As dense as they might be, they will eventually notice that adults have spent all the money, spread disease, and turned the planet into a smoky, filthy ball of death. We're raising an entire generation of dumb, pissed-off kids who know where the handguns are kept. This is not a good recipe for a happy future. Fortunately, there's a solution: Brainwashing. PREDICTION 6 In the future, we will accelerate our successful practice of brainwashing children so they'll be nice to us while we plunder their planet.

Brainwashing the children is the only logical solution to our problems. The alternative is for adults to stop running up debts, polluting, and having reckless sex. For this to happen, several billion Induhviduals would have to become less stupid, selfish, and horny. This is not likely. The path of least resistance is brainwashing the kids. We do it already in lots of ways and it works well. Obviously, we'll have to use a different word than "brainwashing." I suggest calling it "lessons in right and wrong," just as our parents did. Children's brains are like fresh mashed potatoes that you can push around with your fork, making a little bowl to hold your gravy. If you get to them early, you create little citizens who grow up to enthusiastically volunteer for amazingly dangerous tasks-such as killing people in other countries. I know you can't always tell when I'm kidding. So to be perfectly clear:

THE DllBERT FUTURE

14

I'm totally in favor of brainwashing. Brainwashing works, which is why there will be a lot more of it in the future. There are some forms of brainwashing that most of us will agree are good. This will form the baseline requirements for all kids in the future, just as it does today:

Acceptable Brainwashing " Respect your elders. • Worship God. • Democracy is the best system. " Just say no to drugs. It

Low-paying jobs are "honest work."

• Buy Dilbert products. We'll need to add a few new brainwashing themes to prepare for the future.

Additional Brainwashing .. It is an honor to give your money to old, ugly people. • It is a privilege to experience the pollution of previous generations. It

Wrinkles are sexy.

It

Forgetfulness is a sign of wisdom.

• God likes it when you use all your money to pay interest on your parents'debts. • Baldness, huge thighs, and potbellies are all signs of intelligence and sexual potency.

15

Aging

Some might say this view of the future is too cynical. They might say adults can learn to change their behavior and reverse the damage they're causing the planet, thus protecting the world for future generations. My response to this argument is, "There's no such thing as being TOO cynical." 1-11, NORIKO. 15

Wtio Ti4E. HECK IS R.UNNING mIS fV,Nf.T?? 1 IT'S A

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LIFE Will NOT BE LIKE STAR TREK

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I HAD TO CUT A FEW CORNERS. "THIS BIG RADAR-LOOKING THING 1.5 A WALL CLOCK. AND 1"\05T OF THi:. BUTTONS ARE. GLUED ON.

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GREAT ... 1. FINISH E.A.RL'I AND WHP>.T DO I GE.T: "FEATURE CREEP."

Sometimes I fear that I will forget all of my passwords and my secret codes and some large organization will keep all of my money because I can't prove it ever belonged to me. My driver's license and passport will be useless, because toddlers will have the technology to forge that kind of thing on their little "Forge-n-Learn" toys.

62

THE DILBERT FUTURE

So one day I'll find myself in a heated argument with a banking representative in which I try to explain that I really am stupid enough to forget all of my secret codes. I won't know whether I should make an eloquent argument, thus jeopardizing my claim of stupidity, or a really stupid argument, thus proving that I'm correct about how stupid I am. It will all be terribly confUSing and frustrating. Eventually, I'll become a pathetiC homeless guy, wandering around muttering, "Was it gb7k99 or was it gB7k99. I'm sure the 'B' is capitalized!" 1 HAVE. TOO MANY PI',~~WORDS IN I\'Y LIFE.. WHA-T IF I FORGE.T THEI'II'?

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Technology also allows us to get very angry and abusive with people who can't punch us in the nose at that very minute. That is bound to be a dangerous situation, especially for scrawny vegetarians like myself. I never hesitate to question someone's parentage or offer obscene dining suggestions bye-mail. 1 cleverly calculate the precise amount of insult that will make someone think about tracking me down and beating me up, but not mad enough to actually do it. The trouble is, it's a fine line between being almost hunted down and actually hunted down. That's why I sleep in the attic most of the time and leave a dummy in my bed. (1 don't call her dummy to her face. I mumble so it sounds like "honey.") Kidding! When it comes to physical toughness, there are two types of people:

63

Technology Predictions

There are people like me ... and then there are people who can beat the crap out of people like me. The latter have always been bullies. As children, it was their responsibility to administer the wedgies and noogies to all of the other children. This taught the bullies responsibility. They learned to control their power. Those of us who were on the receiving end of the wedgies and noogies never learned to control our power, because we didn't have any. Until now. E-mail allows us to lash out at the people we consider stupid vvhile leaving plenty of time to run away if things get out of hand.

YOUR IGNORANCE SEEr""S TO fiAVE NO UI"\l.T. 'lOUR

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OPINIONS ARE IDIOTIC.

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MY STATUS RUORT IS A BLT LTGI-IT TI-\I5 WEE\< 8 BECAUSE. 1'/,\ HI\VING AN l-MAIL FLAME. WAR WITI-\ ~

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One of the biggest unreported sources of potential violence is a direct result of technology. Quite accidentally, technology has become so impor-

64

THE DIlGERT FUTURE

tant that the people who control it have great power over the rest of us. Sadly, in the real world you hardly ever hear the sentence, "Not only is he great with technology, but he's a friendly person and helpful, too!" Instead, you get this guy:

DOG BERT'S SCHOOL FOR INTERPERSONAL 5~lLLS THE SECRET TO GOOD

HE.Y, I-IOW A.60UT TUAT

.~ LOW-PRESSURE SYSTEMj HUH?!!

RELATIONSHIPS IS TO BE A \-lUGE. P\-lON'I'.

There's also a growing threat from smaller countries who have access to more technology than they can handle. I'm not just talking about nuclear devices. Undeveloped countries are interested in lots of technologies that could blow up or possibly fall on your head if you do something stupid. Imagine a world where hundreds of countries have inexpensive technology to launch huge payloads into low Earth orbits, but don't have any compelling reason to do so. This could be very dangerous. "Hey, Borpney, what should we do with this old broken truck?" "Let's launch it into space. (Hee hee. Snort.)" If every little pissant country like France, for example, starts sending rockets into space, it won't be safe to come out of your basement. You'll take two steps onto your lawn and a booster rocket will crush your skull. That's no way to live.

65

Technology Prediclions

001'. (LBONIAN DIVISION lJAS l"hE LOW BIDDER

fOR LAUNCrlING FREt'.RE '(OUGUYS GOING TO THE COLICKY BII-BY CONVENTION TOO?

)

So I am now officially below the incompetence line when it comes to flying. I can still figure out how to fly from one place to the next, but I'm sure I'm doing it wrong. By wrong, I mean that I'm spending more money and getting less free stuff than I could if I were smarter. But I don't have time to be smarter. I can't dedicate my life to my airline reward programs. The airlines have defeated me. I am buried under mounds of good news from them. They have pushed me below the incompetence line for their service and I don't like it one bit. I don't think I'm alone. Other people must be getting forced below the incompetence line every day. Some people don't have so far to go. I get espeCially scared when the flight attendant is reading the safety instructions and I glance at the Induhviduals sitting in the escape-door aisles. I'm quite certai.n that if the plane had an emergency, these people would grab the headphones out of the seat-back pockets, hold them to their mouths, and try to breathe. Other people would run into the rest rooms and try to

83

The World Gels More Complicated

flush themselves to safety. If you could put on special goggles that allowed you to identifY which people around you are below the incompetence line already, it would be truly frightening, especially if you were near a reflective surface. This all brings me to my prediction.

PREDICTION 21 Lack of education will not be the biggest problem in the future. The problem will be an excess of stupidity as more people fall below the incompetence line.

I don't want to come off sounding like one of those conspiracy nuts, but I'm fairly sure everything in my house was deSigned by someone who is intentionally trying to kill me or make me feel stupid. I think it might be this guy: I HIRED A PROFESSIONAL TO HELP US DE.SIGN ~ OUR PRODUCT INTEf>..FACE

i ~ g

1115 LAST ::rOB WAS AS AN INTERNATIONAL TE:RRORIST IT'S NOT A PERFECT FIT BUT HE WENT TO YALE.

so, I.'

";

5VEN.

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I YU5TGOT OUT LAST WE.EK

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MY THEORY IS THAT A COMPUTER INTERFACE StlOULD HURT THE USER.

I

kEAR YOU WENT TO YALE.,

so I DESIGNED SOME NEW SOUNDS INTO OUR PRODUCT WrVE GOT , ~ "SOUND OF PUKING," ~ "fINGERNAILS ON BU\C.K

e

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WAnER!

HERE'S

IMREE HUNDRED DOLli\R::'. If I .sTAR.\' 10 FLIKT LJI\h 1-1 I 1"\ ) KILL t-Ill"\ \

The scientists will be clever enough to disguise their discovery so it can be approved by the FDA and become widely available. I predict that the new aphrodisiac will be marketed as an antidepressant. That's not too much of a stretch, because it's difficult to be horny and sad at the same time. The beauty of calling the aphrodisiac drug an antidepressant is that anyone can act depressed, thus qualifying for the drug. It's not as if your doctor is going to tickle you to see if you're lying. And if she does, you might want to see if her diploma is signed. The warning on the antidepressant drug's label will say something like, "Might cause amazingly high levels of arousal. Avoid alcohol, vacuum cleaners, and farm animals." No other marketing will be necessary. Unfortunately, new sexually transmitted diseases will keep springing up every year. We'll have a population of incredibly horny people who are afraid to have sex with one another. The solution is virtual reality. Virtual reality technology is also being developed primarily by horny

107

The Future of Gender Relations

males. You might notice a pattern in these technical developments. Historically, the true purpose of every invention is disguised.

INVENTION

REAL PURPOSE

Club

Seduce women

Fire

Stay warm while seducing women

Printing press

Print Bibles in order to impress women

Automobile

Go on dates with women

Television

Look at women who are prettier than the ones in your house

VCR

Watch other people seduce women

Virtual reality

Imagine what it's like to seduce women

Women are largely oblivious to this scientific motivation, and that's probably a good thing. It gives women more time to run the world. That leads to my next subject, almost by coincidence.

WOMEN IN CHARGE PREDICTION 28 In the future, women will run the world in all democratic countries.

I base this prediction on two facts that cannot be disputed:

108

THE DILBERT FUTURE

1. Women already control the world. 2. Who's going to stop them? Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there. We men like to think we're in charge because most of the top jobs in business and government are held by men, but I have a shocking statistical insight for you men-THOSE ARE OTHER MEN. The total percentage of men iI\ those top spots is roughly .0000001 percent of the male population. I'm n~t one of them. I just draw cartoons and write these stupid books. Chances are, if you're a man reading this, you're not running the world, either. I have about as much in common with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company as I have with my cat. It's not logical to say that I, as a man, run the world based on the fact that total strangers with similar chromosomes have excellent jobs. Yet that is exactly what many people believe. When the JOint Chiefs of Staff are deciding whether to go to war, they do not call my house and say, "We're calling all the men who run the world to ask for their input." Believe it or not, they make those decisions without consulting me. That's probably a good thing, because I favor air strikes against all countries whose names are difficult to pronounce. It's not a "policy" in the strictest sense of the word, but it would sure make it easier to discuss world events. Furthermore, tiny countries should have short names so the mapmakers can fit it all in. I think that would stimulate the economy somehow. But these excellent ideas are wasted under the current system of global decision-making. Someone might argue that men have access to the top jobs whereas women do not. There's some truth to that, but the mathematical fact is, 99.9999999 percent of all men can't get those top jobs, either. There aren't enough of those jobs to go around. The rest of us men live in a world that is ruled by women, as I will explain for those of you who hadn't noticed.

109

The Future of Gender Relotions

FINllLLY, YOU I'\U5T fLING YOURSELf DOWN T~E

ELEVI\TOR

ShAFT!

What evidence do I have that women rule the world? Take a look at the world and ask yourself how it would be different if men were REALLY in charge. Look at the things that men want most, then check to see if the world is organized to provide those things or to limit them. Logically, if men made the rules, the world would be organized to provide them vvith the things they want most. Men want sex. If men ruled the world, they could get sex anywhere, anytime. Restaurants would give you sex instead of breath mints on the way out. Gas stations would give sex with every fill-up. Banks would give sex to anyone who opened a checking account. But it doesn't work that way, at least not at my bank. (Having your own "personal banker" isn't all it's cracked up to be.) Instead, for the most part, sex is provided by women if they feel like it, which they usually don't. If a heterosexual guy wants sex, he has to hold doors, buy flowers, act polite, lift heavy objects, kill spiders, pretend to be interested in boring things, and generally act like a complete wuss. Can anyone think men designed that system?

THE DllBERT FUTURE

110

I'M 50 LUCK'{

ARE WE USING

TO BE DATING '.,I"'.P5 ARE. CARTS ARE. AJ "LUCKY." NOT EDIBLE... YOU CA"II"\AKE AN EXCElLENT SIGN WITI-\ A BLACK I"\ARKING ] PEN AND A ~ HUNK OF CARDBOARD

!

\

THE DllBERT fUTURE

128

More people are discovering the joys of self-employment every year. Before long, they'll band together to get discounts on insurance, office equipment, training, and travel. They'll have their own magazines and conventions. They'll share information and blackball certain employers, cutting them off from the top talent. The self-employed \vill have power. Then the real fun begins. The old-fashioned "job interview" mn be a relic. Instead of the employer tormenting the helpless wannabe employee, you'll have the contract employees interviemng the employer.

Old Job Interview Process Employer:

I see that your name is Carl, but I'll call you pimple boy. Is that okay \vith you?

Job Seeker:

Yes sir. You are verv observant.

Employer:

What is your biggest weakness, aside from your appearance, your lack of education, and your irrelevaJ)t experience?

Job Seeker:

When I tongue-washed your car this morning, I forgot to move the car one foot ahead so I could wash the part of the tire that was on the ground.

Employer:

INCOMPETENT FOOL! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

/

Future Job Interview Process Employer:

What can I do to convince you to accept obscene amounts of money to work here on a short-term contract basis? I'm begging. Please.

The Future of Work

129

Contractor:

\,yell ... I always wanted to have a pony.

Employer:

I'll get you a pony!

Contractor:

No, I want you to be my pony.

PREDICTION 33 In the future, highly qualified people will go on job interviews purely for recreation.

!-lEY I THI\T LITTLE STUfFED DOLL LOOKS -;:rU5T LII'-E ME'

IT GIVES ME I\N EI'\OTIONAL LIFT TO HAVE ,{OUR

LIKENESS NEI\RBY

This new balance of power will be loads of fun for the contract employees, especially the bitter ones who were downsized. But despite the fun of being a contract employee, there will still be lots of regular employees. Their balance of power will also change, but in a totally different way. That leads me to the next topic.

THE JOB SEARCH IN THE FUTURE Most people end up in their jobs by luck. For every person who planned a career, there are twenty who have stories that sound a lot like this one that I just made up:

THE DllBERT FUTURE

130

Not a True Story Well, one day I was riding my bike and a huge dog bit me and left me for dead. On the way to the hospital, a tanker truck ran a red light and collided with my ambulance, creating a gigantic explosion that propelled me across the street and onto a table at a sidewalk cafe. I started screaming, "WAA-OOO-AAHHH!" One of the patrons at the cafe was a music producer. He signed me to a five-record deal and drove me to the hospital. That's where I met my drummer. Most people won't admit how they got their current jobs unless you push them up against a built-in wall unit and punch them in the stomach until they spill their drink and start yelling, "I'LL NEVER INVITE YOU TO ONE OF MY PARTIES AGAIN, YOU DRUNKEN FOOL!" I think the reason these annoying people won't tell me how they got their jobs is because they are embarrassed to admit luck was involved. I can't blame them. Typically, the pre-luck part of their careers involved doing something enormously pathetiC. A5 '10U RE.QIJE5TED, I DROPPED EVERYTHING AND WROTE CA\\EE~ DEVELOPf"\ENT PLAN

"''I

~ ~

~

~

~

~

I PLAN TO BourKE FROM ~ HERE. 1'1"\ ONE ARTIfICIAL mERGEN- " USING f-IUf"\OR TO C,( TO At--\OTf1ER; LIKE A ~ f"\I>.KE A PING-PONG BALL IN A POINT. CLOTHES DRYE.R, UNTIL ONE DAY I RESIGN. )

I

Fp..'I-. TH15 \"0 r\R ~OlJ)\\. \1/

Take me, for example, I'm a successful cartoonist and author because I'm a complete failure at being an employee of the local phone company, Despite the fact that my co-workers were so lifeless they were often mis-

The Future of Work

131

taken for mannequins, I was not streaking past them on my way up the career ladder. I didn't have the hair or height to succeed in management. Instead, I spent my time mocking successful managers and aCcidentally preparing for my future career. I learned to draw when I was a kid because the alternative forms of entertainment were limited. I didn't grow up in what you'd call "a town with intellectually stimulating people." I suppose I could have made friends with the kids my age who were fascinated with the interaction of firecrackers and frogs, but science didn't interest me at the time. We had a television, but we only received one channel clearly. It required some ingenuity to do any channel surfing, especially since we didn't have a remote control. I would wait until my little sister wandered by and then yell, "Cindy, change the channel while you're up." This was very funny until the millionth time, after which she broke my jaw with a hassock. My only other choices for entertainment were drawing cartoons or playing Scrabble with Mom. Mom took her Scrabble very seriously. She was a brutal competitor. In fact, she didn't teach me any language skills until I reached the age of six, because she figured that would give her an edge in Scrabble later on. I was in college before I figured out that Webster didn't really make any last-minute handwritten additions to the dictionary. To this day I still wonder about her claim that head-butting is allowed in Scrabble. So I ended up drawing cartoons alone in my room because it didn't require any language skills and I wouldn't have to watch my Mom do that damned victory dance on the kitchen table. If I wrote a completely accurate resume for myself right now, I'd have to say something like, "Leveraged my inadequacies into a career that involves making fun of people who are more successful in business than I am." There are some exceptions to the career luck rule. For example, lawyers and doctors study for years to prepare for their professions, diligently acquiring valuable information that they can use later in lieu of personalities. But the rest of us don't have a clear career path. If we're lucky, we're

132

THE DllBERT fUTURE

bitten by large dogs and propelled into sidewalk cafes where something lucky happens. It's a good thing that career luck happens so often. It's more effective than the alternative-lying on your resume and hoping you get an interview with someone who has poor perception. The current job-fllling process has been a wonderful thing for unqualified people. I was a major beneficiary of the system in my corporate past. I could always count on moving to a new job within the company, assisted by the fact that the hi ling manager didn't have a good system for finding a better candidate. My employer's lack of alternatives was my gain. But what happens when every job opening and every resume is on the Internet? Surely that will happen. You'll suddenly find yourself competing against thousands of candidates for evel), low- and medium-skill job. You won't be able to rely on the inefficiency of the job search process anymore. Companies "'rill be able to find a candidate who not only fits a job perfectly without training, but might be willing to do it for less than the normal salary for that position. For example, someone in a godforsaken hellhole like North Dakota might want to move to California and be willing to accept a low salary to do it. In fact, they might be willing to do it \vithout demanding that their relocation costs be paid. In fact, they might be willing to strap their livestock to their backs and walk to California. (Note: If you are a resident of the godforsaken hellhole of North Dakota, the only thing I actually know about your state is that you don't buy many Dilhert books. The conclusion that it is a hellhole follows lOgically. If this bothers you, I suggest that you move to South Dakota where you can get some respect.) For the first time in history, companies will have an abundance of good applicants for every job opening in the "medium-skill" level. That means salaries for medium-skilled jobs will go down, unless the government gets involved. If the government notices what's happening to salmies, they ,vill step in and do what governments always do for the powerless-they'll raise their taxes. So it's bad news all around.

133

The Future of Work

PREDICTION 34

In the future, salaries will go down for people in medium-skilled jobs, thanks to the godforsaken hellhole called North Dakota. It's happy days ahead for the highly skilled laborer. The job market will start to look like the NBA. Top technical people will command amazingly obscene salaries. The employee \vho is 1 percent better in a high~skill area is worth a hundred times as much as someone who is just "pretty good." That 1 percent might be the difference between winning and losing in the marketplace-just as it is in sports. Professional sports is a good model for how the rest of the economy will look in the future. Pro sports is an industry where there is almost complete information about who has what skills and who has what openings. It's a fairly efficient job market. In the NBA, you end up with amazingly rich athletes on one end of the scale and everyone else who works for the club has job descriptions like, "Guy who wipes perspiration off the court during time-outs." There are a few executives in the middle to hold it all together, but they aren't terribly important. That's what the job market will look like in the future-rich superstar professionals on one end of the spectrum, perspiration wipers on the other, and a few managers in the middle. Everything else will be done by consultants or outsourcing firms. PREDICTION 35

In the future, employees will either be superstars or perspiration wipers. Those who aren't qualified to do either will become managers.

THE DllBERT FUTURE

134

OUTSOURCING

~

t\-lE COMPAN't' I-IAS DECIDED TO OUTSOVRCE ALL OF THE FUNCTIONS THAT WE'RE. NOT ANY GOOD AT.

~~~

__ __ ~~

~

~

~

W\-IEN'S

' I FIN I SHED THE ITEI'\ PART BUT NOT THE ACTION.

l

YES, !>.ND T14A."T ESTII'\ATE

I.5 100'70 COMPLETE!

139

The future of Work

OR 1 COULD IMPLEMENT A BOLD QUALITY

INITlf>.TlVE WITI1 T4E HELP OF MY Tf>.LENTEO ANO

ENERGETlC CO-WORKERS .

AND TED GETS TInS "SIl'-IGllLAR AC\-\IEVEMENT" AWARD FOR C!.T I'VE

TI-IOSE BEkAIJIORS ,HAT

BECOME AN AGENT OF r.I-IANGE.

CONTRIBUTE TO A CULTURE OF TEAMWORK.

REALIZ.E

WHAT THIS

~ ~

~

The Future of Work

143

In the future, more people will work for themselves, creating a huge market for bizarre products.

Obviously, with a work environment like Dilberfs, a growing number of people 'Nill choose to work at home. There's a huge market opportunity for anyone who can figure out what products to sell to people who work at home. Three ideas come to mind:

Products Needed for the Work-at-Home Market " Smell-o-meter to remind you when to bathe. 10

Anti-cat guard for your computer keyboard.

" Pants vvith special holsters for holding bananas. (I like to snack during the day and I resent the trips to the kitchen.) I also want a fake "call-waiting" feature for my phone. That would be a huge time-saver, because my friends think that just because I'm sitting around in my pajamas rubbing my bald spot, I'm not working. They don't know that is exactly what my mission statement says I should be dOing. 1'd like to be able to tell the people who call me, "Ooh, It sounds like I have another call. Would you mind hanging up and never calling again?" I already say that to people, but I think some are catching on that I'm making the call-waiting sound by whistling.

THE fUTURE OF TELECOMMUTING A growing number of workers-those who are more clever than industrious-have already discovered the unbridled joy of sitting at home and getting paid for sleeping, eating, masturbating, and watching television. This

THE DllBERT FUTURE

144

technique-sometimes called telecommuting-has all the financial advantages of being employed v\lith none of the stigma of being a filthy, perverted hobo.

PREDICTION 38

In the future, filthy, perverted hobos will refer to themselves as telecommuters, until someone points out that they aren't being paid.

Telecommuting is much better than the alternative of going into the office and having your co-workers peck you to death like a flock of chickens on a tissue-paper bag full of corn. (Please take a moment to savor that analogy. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the chickens clucking.)

DON'T COME. ANOTHER STEP CLOSER. THIS IS VIRTUAL CUBICLE, WITHIN WHIO, I CAN NOT BE DISTORBED.

1"1'(

THESE INVISm~E. WALLS! FORf'I A CONE OF ~

PRODUCTIVITY AROUND I"IE.

(WITKIN THIS ZONE '\

I

I AI"I A DEDICATED

I

~ U'\PLO'lEE, TOTALLY J - , FOCU"ED ON THE

I CORPORATE '-.

V15101'1. / '

('j (j

Those of you who are foolish enough to transport your bodies to the office are faced with the daily horror of what some people have begun calling "negative work."

I

145

The Future of Work

NEGATIVE WORK FORMULA Real Work + Negative Work

=

Zero Work

For example, let's say you need some vital information from a co-worker in order to do "real work." Your co-worker is likely to generate enough "negative work" to cancel your productivity for the day.

Example of Negative Work in Action You:

Please give me that vital information that you alone possess.

Co-worker:

Sure, but while I've got you here, why don't you attend my project meeting?

You:

Urn ... what does your project have to do vvith me?

Co-worker:

It's an important project. You should be there to provide your valuable input.

You:

I don't even know what your project is about.

Co-worker:

Of course not! You haven't attended any of the meetings. It starts in ten minutes. I'll give you the vital information right afterward. Heck, we might even discuss the vital information during the meeting. You don't want to miss that, do you?

(At this point in the conversation, you realize you will never get help from this co-worker again unless you cave in to this ludicrous request.)

146

THE DllBERT fUTURE

You:

Well, okay, I guess.

Co-worker:

Great. Oh, and bring a pad. It's your turn to take the minutes.

The result of this is negative work. Productivity in the modern office can be scored like golf, as in "I'm three under for the day." For every unit of work, there is at least one offsetting unit of negative work created by your Induhvidual co-workers. It's worse for women, of course, because male Induhviduals know that flirting with female co-workers looks exactly like work. Males naturally want to talk to as many women as possible during the day. This maximizes their enjoyment and income while trading off nothing except shareholder value-and that belongs to people who should know better than to invest in your company. So it's hard to feel sorry for them. The lonelier the guy and the more attractive the woman, the greater the amount of negative work that will be generated. For lonely guys, a business meeting with attractive co-workers is like a date, except at the end of the meeting, the women give you correct phone numbers. Speaking as a guy who has dated, this is a big improvement. I realize it's unwise to go deeper into this topic during times of great sensitivity about diversity in the workplace, but there's something that all women need to know about men in order to understand what's behind much of the negative work. Here it is. The secret that all males in the workplace don't want women to know is: WE'RE THINKING ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH YOU!

If you're a woman, you're thinking, "Duh." You already knew that. The part you probably don't know is when men think it and how often. The "how often" part is whenever you're talking. Men can only do one thing at a time. vVe're notorious single-taskers. We can't speak a sentence and hold a good fantasy at the same time, so when we're talking, we're not fantasizing. But when a woman is talking to a man, the man has two choices:

147

The Future of Work

1. Listen. 2. Fantasize about having sex with the woman who is generating all that noise.

f"IY "DEFANTALATOR" II INVENTlON CAN ELlI"llNATE ~ mE UNPRODUCTIVE AND ~ NAUGtiTY THOUGHTS OF YOUR ~ ('IALE EMPLOYEES.

J

e 8

V)

WE 5UCCEEDED IN GETTING f"IEN TO STOP ACTING LIKE MEN) BUT IT WA5N'T ENOU6K. MEN MUST 5TOP THINKING LIKE I1EN TOO.

HEY! 1 THINK I'M 5TARTlNG TO LIKE FlGUt\[

5KATING!

This explains the common complaint that women have about men-we don't listen. It's not because we don't want to listen to what you have to say, but that we can't do two things at once. Listening never gets higher than the number-two priority. (Okay, maybe that's the same as saying we don't want to listen. But let's not get all caught up in semantics.) The reason I can safely reveal this secret is that men already know it and women won't believe it. Women are multitaskers. I'll bet women can mix a fantasy with their conversation without missing a beat. Women probably think men are like that, too-capable of entertaining mild fantasies

THE DllBERT FUTURE

148

throughout the day without losing focus or drifting in and out of comas. Well, we can't. When you're talking, we're thinking intensely about having sex \\lith you. If you're unattractive, we're focusing on the woman just over your shoulder. It's not something we're proud of. It's just the way we're wired. If there are any women who think I'm overgeneralizing, I'll be happy to meet with you to listen to your point of view. But please bring a cute friend as an emergency backup in case you're wrong.

I :rUST WATCHED THE fv\ANDATOR'I VIDEO ON SE)(UAl Hf>..RASSfv\l:NT.

IT WORKED.'

I

. 8

~ ~

!

u

IN ONL,( TKIRT'I fv\INUTES, TK"'T VLDEO CORRECTED A BILLION YEARS OF E.VOLUTION. 00 SOMETHING SE.W ANO WATCH ME IGNORE IT!

z

.~ "

I PROBABLY SKOULDN'T KIWE. FI>,ST-FORWf>..RDE.D THROUGK THE BORING PART:'.

Telecommuting isn't for everyone. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to work alone. I recommend trying telecommuting for one week and then taking this quiz to see if you have what it takes to enjoy it.

Telecommuting Enioyment Test .. Did you at any time open the refrigerator and start shoveling anything that wasn't stuck to the shelf toward the big hole in your face? .. Did you at any time take a conference call in the nude and experience an intense gUilty pleasure?

The Future of Work

149

• Did you at any time curse at an inanimate object and later apologize to it? • Did .you at any time engage in solo sex and yell out, "I'M GETTING PAID FOR THIS! HA HA HA HA HAl"?

If you said yes to any of those questions, you should be telecommuting more often.

THE FUTURE OF OFFICE WORKSTATIONS When I first joined the work force in 1979, anybody with a body temperature over eighty degrees qualified for a private office with a door. Those were glOriOUS, carefree days. I was working for a huge California bank. Every day, I would close the door to my private office and spend hours making personal phone calls, balancing my checkbook, and flirting with attractive female co-workers. Sometimes I flirted with unattractive female co-workers, but in my defense, I considered it "practice." Thousands of my co-workers were doing similar things behind their own closed doors, except for the handful of attractive co-workers who were forced to roam from office to office to keep the system working. Eventually, my company was purchased by its competitor for the price of $12 plus some postage stamps (I forget the exact figure), and most of my co-workers were fired. I escaped their fate by calling upon my most valuable professional resource-luck-which allowed me to attach myself in a barnacle-like fashion to another big company in the nick of time. I even got a large undeserved salary increase too. Although I successfully leveraged my incompetence into a better job, I still looked back with bitterness, dismay, and yes, sometimes laughter. The laughter part was usually when my ex-co-workers called to ask if there were any openings at my company. I found 100 different ways to tell them that my new company had much higher standards, and it wasn't really an option they should be conSidering. Although I was out of banking, I couldn't stop wondering what the vic-

150

THE DILBERT FUTURE

tOlious bank had that myoId vanquished bank didn't have. Why could one company triumph where one had failed? In time, I uncovered their secret: cubicles.

OK.AY! Tf1IJ IS ONE TIDY LITTLE CUBICLE NOW.t

THE CLEANLINESS OF

[

ONE'S WORK SPACE IS A SIGN OF HOW MUCH

i

~

ONE ENJOYS ONE'S

GIVE ME THE CLEANER', IT'5 MY TUR.N TO

FANTA.5IZE \\-\~T rM A

0'OB.

MAIO.

)

1'0 LIKE. 10 [ BEGIN WITH A MONOLOGUE ~ ENTIJLED

t

"WOE IS CARL"

)

~ ~~~~~~? ~

~

U--L~~__""L--J4t:::~

,(Oll'LL BE Sf-IMING THIS CUBICLE. wnf1 OUR OTHER co-oPS

AS A co-oP EMPLO,(EE,

YOU CAN'T EXPECT THE SAf'\E LUSH CUBICLE ENVIRONMENT THAT THE REGULAR EMPLOYEES EN0'O'l.

1.

!

________J~L-~~~~~~uw~~

J

f-IEARD

THAT THE

NE.W co-oP ONL't' LASTED

ONE OAY.

)

b---~~~.a

[

____________

HE 0ION'T FIT I.N.

151

The Future of Work

IT LOOKS LIKE 501"1('60D'I IS USING 51 NOERS 'A ILLEGALLY INCREASE THE. SIZE OF HIS CUBICLE.

YOU THINK 'lOUR STATUS WILL INCREASE WITH YOUP.. CU5ICLE. SHE, DON'T YOU! WELL, IT WON'T WOf\\\!

~~

I-IERE.'S 1\

RAISE. 1 DONT KNOW WHY.

rP55ST.lS: HE SEEING I

ANYBODY?

'-----\

,.:..

The bank discovered that when employees were taken out of private offices and put in tiny, fabric-covered containers, they became competitive dynamos. These cubicle-bound titans used less real estate, heating, and cooling. And the sleek, dOOl"less design cut way back on the flirting and personal calls. Those workers became unstoppable, productive juggernauts capable of squashing any sissified office-dwelling company. Employee communication increased Significantly. With the open-cubicle deSign, they could hear not only the conversations directed at themselves, but also the conversations directed at anyone else. And they weren't limited to audio inputs. They could read the body language of everyone in the office who waddled past the cubicles all day long. I CP-N'T RU'IEMIOER If I USE THE 5PEA.KERPKONE BEeP-USE I'M INCON51OERA.TE. OR BECAUSE I'M TOO STUPID ,0 !.

\-\1. THANKS fOR il-\E.

INfORhATION. il\LK. TO ,(OU

LA.TE.R \ I \

THE DllBERT FUTURE

152

That bank hasn't rested on its laurels. They're still innovating. Recently, they improved the restrooms by removing all the stalls and adding windows to the hallway. Result: Nobody goes in there to read the sports section anymore. Profits have zoomed. It looks like another good year for the stockholders.

11'5 M,\AZING H.OW i"\UCH WE'VE CH~NGED

SINCE PREHISTORIC TIf"\ES )

OUR I\f'lCESTORS :rUST SAT AROUND IN CAVES) GRUNTING AND DR~WmG ~ ON TI-I£ WP-lL ~

But what of the future of office workstations? Nothing ever stays the same. It's safe to predict that cubicles are not the ultimate answer for office space. So let's follow the lOgic and see where it leads. Cubicles are more competitive than private offices, but they still have a lot of wasted room. A fully occupied cubicle is 70 percent air. That waste has not escaped the notice of workstation designers. Most of the unused airspace will be driven out of the design of future work areas. This is already happening at many companies, albeit gradually, as they replace larger cubicles with ever-smaller versions. This practice even has a name at some companies: "densification." But it won't end there.

153

The Future of Work

"'1\. C~TBERT, OUR EVIL DIRECTOR OF HU"'At-l RE50URCE5, WILL DE5CRIBE OUR NEW CUBICLE. PLA N.

LA5T YEAR WE. REDUCED THE 5IIE OF CUBICLES IN THE. DEN5IFLCATION Pfl-OJ"EC.T.

I see the workstation of the future looking like a high-tech hairdresser's chair. You'll have your computer built into the base of the chair and the keyboard swinging onto your lap from the side. No desk surface will be needed. An oversized helmet-like device (let's call it a "head cubicle") will be attached to the back of your chair and cover your head for privacy. On the inside of the head cubicle will be a display screen, speakers, and a microphone. Every unit will be wired to the Internet and the public phone system. These workstations will be lined up side by side in warehouse-like office spaces in dangerous neighborhoods. You'll be able to shout and sing and moan in your head cubicle without disturbing your co-worker who is two feet away. And you won't hear his annoying cries for help after sustaining a bullet wound on the way to work.

PREDICTION 39

In the future, aggressive companies will replace standard cubicles with head cubicles.

THE DllBERT FUTURE

J54

New technology will allow managers to monitor the unproductive activities of each employee as never before. Sensors will detect your pulse and breathing rates to determine whether you're downloading pornography from the Internet or doing anything else that is fun or stimulating. Monitors will detect REM patterns and beep whenever an employee nods off. Employees will learn to stay in a narrow range of joyless existence between happiness (which shouldn't be compensated) and sleep (which is unproductive). Let's call that the "Compensated Work Zone," or CWZ for short. I don't plan to use the phrase ever again for the rest of my life, but I think we can all admit we like acronyms and leave it at that.

HER.E.'S f"'IY TIf"'I[ SHEU, FILLED OUT IN INCREI"\[NTS OF FIFTH.N I"\INllTE5

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You won't need conference rooms, because everyone will be able to attend virtual meetings without leaving the chair. Visitors from the outside ,vin get their own special chairs in the lobby so they never have to see the employees in person. The virtual meetings won't use video conferencing technology in the way most people imagine. There's one huge drawback to video conferencing: Many employees are ugly. Logically, it is a waste of bandwidth to

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transmit an image of something you'd be better off not looking at. If you think about it, there are very few of your co-workers who have faces you'd like to see more often. I've never met anyone who kept pictures of their co-workers on their desk in little frames. It's rare to find anyone carrying a picture of a co-worker in their wallet. So then why on Earth would we want to transmit their ugly faces across the network and have them appear two feet from our noses? The obvious solution-and inevitable by any reasoned opinion-is that people 'will send digitally enhanced images to represent themselves at meetings. This will solve the ugliness and the dress code problem at the same time. Every employee will have a chance to create their own digital representative. There ,vill be corporate guidelines of course, which I imagine will look something like this:

Corporate Guidelines for Digital Representatives (DR) l. Your DR may not be a nudist.

2. Your DR may not resemble our CEO in leather chaps. 3. Your DR's head and buttocks must be clearly differentiated. 4. Your DR may not be viSibly aroused.

ACRONYMS SHORTAGES There are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Eventually, all of the good acronyms that are less than four letters will be used up. This will be a major problem for businesses.

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156

'IE.STERDAY WE RAN OUT OF ACRONYMS "TODAY WE. USED OUR LAST ACCOUNTING CODE. WE'RE IN BIG TROUBLE.

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We'll also start running out of new company names and logo designs. The first sign of trouble-and we're already seeing it-is when major companies begin using coffee stains for logos."

YOUR NEW LOGO MIGI1T LOOK LIKE A SI/'\PLE COFFEE STAIN, BUT WI1AT DOES Ti-IE mAGE SAY ABOUT

you?

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We're already starting to scrape the bottom of the name barrel.

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After the Brown Ring of Quality strips were published in the newspaper, I got many e-mail

messages from people who assumed I was referring to AT&T's Lucent spin-off. Many other people wrote to say it reminded them of their OV/11 logos. Apparently, the coffee stain concept was a popular one.

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The Future of Work

PREDICTION 40 In the future, your only choices for new project names will be ones that sound undignified.

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LIKE. YOU TO ...

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THE WHOLE TIME.. AND JUST MYBE I'LL COI1 PLAI N BEt-UN D YOUR BACK!!

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True Story At one technology company, the senior management became angered that two important projects had been named Ren and Stimpy, after famous cartoon characters. They declared that henceforth there would be a master namer who would approve the names of all future projects. The master namer would choose from a list of famous river names to ensure appropriate and dignified names. The process worked well until engineers presented the status of projects Ubangi and Volga. Senior management was livid until someone explained that those are the names of rivers.

THE DllBERT FUTURE

158 AS YOU KNOW, ALL PROJECTS ARE ASSIGNE D ~ ACRONYMS UN fORTUN, ATELY, ALL TI-\E GOOD ONES I-IAVE BEEN U5ED. ~

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ANY

NEI-J fROifECT WILL

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COULD USE "FI-ILEG/i" OR "FLI'-CENTA"

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INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE Industrial espionage sounds like a great concept on paper. The theory is that your competitors know something important that you should also know.

In the future, it will become increasingly obvious that your competitors are just as clueless as you are.

ALICE, YOU'VE GOT TO LOCK UP THESE PR.OPRIETAf'-'i ~ DOCUMENTS 'IOu HAVE ~

~I=N~YOnUFR=C=U=B=I~CL~E=.====~!

II' ouR COMPETITORS SEE OUR, PLANS,ITCOULD BE VERY DANGER.OUS.

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THE COM.PETITOR5

OOH! LOOK! THEY'RE PLANNING TO "UTILIZE SYNERGY." WE'RE IN Tf\OUBLE.

NOW!

I AND TI4I\T'S T\-\£ M.AI\KETING PLAN. ANY COM,M.ENT5!'

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.RS TO BE A 5UNCI-\ OF OBVIOUS GENERALITIES AND WISHFUL Tt-IINKING WITH NO APPI\RENT BUSINESS VALUE.

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I CIRCLED ALL TI-IE. WORDS YOU WON'T FIND IN ANY DICTIONARY.

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In the past, every successful company had some sort of "barrier to entry" that kept other companies from swooping in and stealing their customers.

PREDICTION 42 In the future, all barriers to entry will go away and companies will be forced to form what I call "confusopolies."

Confusopoly: A group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price.

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THE DILBERT FUTURE

All the things that used to be barriers to entry are disappearing, thanks to huge improvements in technology, capital markets, transportation, and communication. Any company can enter any other business by buying the parts they need and putting them together. You can buy the people, the knowledge, the equipment, and the market research. In theory, every company in the future will be able to figure out exactly what the customer wants and then buy the resources needed to produce it. Even patents are becoming less of a barrier, becau5to there is always a way to engineer around them. Without exception, all the things that have been traditional barriers to entry are diminishing in importance. A hundred years ago, it was only practical to have one major phone company serving the United States. Today, there are lots of choices and more on the way. They all provide nearly identical service. You would think this would create a price war and drive the prices down to the cost of providing it (that's what I learned between naps in my economics classes), but it isn't happening. The companies are forming efficient confusopolies so customers can't tell who has the lowest prices. Companies have learned to use the complexities of life as an economic tool. A few short years ago, a tiny software startup called Netscape Communications built an Internet browser that threatened to dethrone Microsoft's stranglehold on computer software. \Vithin a year, Microsoft was able to buy all the talent and resources it needed to build a similar product that didn't violate any patents or copyrights. That's the model of the future: Any new product can be rapidly matched by a determined competitor. Browser software is just complicated enough that I can't tell which one would be better for the things I might be doing in the future. N etscape and Microsoft have formed a confusopoly, thus guaranteeing that both will survive and prosper. Several other industries are already dominated by confusopolies:

Existing (onfusopolies .. Telephone service.

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• Insurance. • Mortgage loans. • Banking. .. Financial services. Those types of companies are natural confusopolies, because they offer products that would be indistinguishable to the customer except for the great care taken to make them intentionally confusing. Companies form confusopolies to make it impossible for the average Induhvidual to determine who has the lowest price. This way each major company gets a share of the pie, the size of which depends on how skillfully they can dupe ignorant customers \vith advertisements. That will be the primary job of marketing professionals in the future-disguising the true cost of your product in order to be a successful confusopolist. I recently had a conversation with a top executive for an energy company. He told me that in the near future I would be able to specify which company I wanted to provide electricity to my house. My local power utility will handle all of the physical connections and billing, but I will be able to specify which company actually produces the electricity I buy. Uh-oh. This means-lord help us all-that power companies will soon form confusopolies and fill the advertising channels \vith information about the quality of their electricity. They will accuse the competitors of having defective electricity. Celebrities will be hired as electricity spokespersons. People will want to use the electricity that Michael Jordan uses, because it will be so much better. You'll see magazine ads featuring toast made with the competitor's electricity, all spotty and burnt, compared to perfect toast made with the advertiser's electricity. Eventually, word will get around that electricity is pretty much the same regardless of who makes it. So marketing will begin to focus on confusing people about the true price. Each power company \vill have different electricity pricing models that claim to be the cheapest.

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162

Electricity Advertisements • Only a dime per watt! .. Lease your electricity, don't buy! • Huge discounts on off-peak usage! ., Big savings for frequent microwavers! The vast array of confusing choices will anger you as a consumer, but you will have to pick one-unless you crave the Unabomber lifestyle (which looks more rational every day). You'll choose your power company by using sophisticated analytical methods, such as looking at the names of each company and trying to decide which one sounds like they have "good people." In a'future where confusion is the most important competitive asset, the successful companies are the ones who do it best. Dogbert would make an excellent entrepreneur in that environment.

HMM ... 5LMPLY MULTIPLY

TilE 5TANDARD DEVIATION OF TtlE COSINE OF YOUR DfPRECIATION AND Ii'I'TEGMTE 'TtlE RESULTING rOLYNOMII\L '" THERE.

163

Marketing in the Future OOG5ERT: FINANCI/l.L ADVISOR 5TOC.K::>... ANNUITIES ... DERIVATIVE::> ... CAPITAL GAINS TJ>..,( ..

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TOO CONFUSING I'OR YOUi! GIVE ME ALL '